foucault-and-the-iranian-revolution-janet-afary

196 Appendix
Yes, modernization as a political project and as a principle of social trans­
formation is a thing of the past in Iran.
I do not mean that mere mistakes and failures have doomed the recent
forms that the shah wanted to give to modernization. It is true that all the
great efforts undertaken by the regime since 1963 are now rejected, by all
social classes.24 It is not only the big property owners who are discontented
with the agrarian reform, but also the small peasants, who fall into debt as
soon as they are granted a parcel of land, and are then forced to emigrate to
the city. The artisans and the small manufacturers are discontented, because
the creation of an internal market benefited mainly foreign products.25 The
bazaar merchants are discontented because the current forms of urbanization
suffocate them. The wealthy classes, who counted on a certain level of na­
tional industrial development and who can now only imitate the governing
caste by placing their capital in California banks or in Parisian real estate, are
also discontented.
" Modernization," which is no longer desired, is this series of stinging failures.
But "modernization" is also something older that sticks to the current
monarch, and that is his raison d'etre. It is something that is the basis not only
of his government, but also of his dynasty.
In 1921, when Reza Khan, the head of the Cossack Brigade, was brought
to power by the English, he presented himself as a disciple of Ataturk. 26 No
doubt this was a usurpation of the throne, but he also had three objectives
borrowed from Mustafa Kemal: nationalism, secularism, and modernization.
The Pahlavis were never able to reach the first two objectives. As to national­
ism, they neither could, nor knew how to, loosen the constraints of geopol­
itics and oil wealth. The father placed himself under English domination in
order to stave off the Russian threat. The son substituted American political,
economic, and military control for the English presence and for Soviet
penetration. For secularism, things were equally difficult. Because it was the
Shi'ite religion that in fact constituted the real principle of national conscious­
ness, Reza Shah, in order to dissociate the two, tried to propagate a notion of
"Aryanness," whose sole support was the myth of Aryan purity that reigned
elsewhere. In the eyes of the people, what did it mean to discover one fine day
that they were Aryans? It was nothing more than seeing the two-thousand­
year-old monarchy being celebrated today on the ruins of Persepolis.
Out of the whole Kemalist program, international politics and the inter­
nal situation left to the Pahlavis only one bone to chew on, that of mod­
ernization. This modernization is now utterly rejected, not only because of
the setbacks that have been experienced, but also because of its very princi­
ple. With the present agony of the regime, we witness the last moments of